John Shehata
Occupation: Executive Director of Search for ABC News, ABC.com, ABC Family and Oscars.
John Shehata leads the search engine optimization and social media online strategies for ABC News and TV shows. In addition to managing the day-to-day operations of his SEO social media teams, he is responsible for developing and implementing...

1. First Things First

When you choose a business name, use simple easy to remember business name that has your main search term(s) describing your business (laundry, jewelry, plumber, hair salon, computer repair, etc)

If you already have a business name, don’t change it. It is recommended that you never change your business name unless you are creating a new company.

If there are multiple main search terms that describe your business choose the most popular one, the one that users use most frequently when referring to a business like yours (choose Laundromat is used almost 5 times in search vs. Laundry)

Get a Gmail account ( YourBusinessName@gmail.com ) and make sure you have a very secure password and a secondary email for recovery

Use this email in all the steps below

Don’t use your email@YourDomain.com. If someone hacked your site, they have control over your email and can reset all your logins to all services online including hosting, domain name, business listing pages, social accounts, etc. They can take over your online presence for your business in matter of days.

You can use email@YourDomain.com in contact us forms and customer communications and emails displayed in listing pages but don’t use it in logins

Don’t fall victim for shady advertising companies. You will be contacted 100s of times from marketing companies that will offer you a site, domain name, marketing, etc

Don’t market your site in Yellow Pages or Newspapers, it is useless. Unless your target audience is mainly paper oriented and not active online

If an advertising company hint that they have special relationship with Google, never do a business with them. They are liars!

You get what you pay for; if you get a low budget campaign you are probably getting a bad service.

If they do paid ads on Google and Bing, ask how much money allocated for your ads (paid to google/bing) and how much commission they charge. A reasonable commission is between 15-30%. If they refuse to disclose the number, don’t trust them.

Ask what happens to your site and business listings if you stop working with them, and who owns the site and listings.

Ask for references, get sites, check rankings and call business owners from their contact us forms on their sites to confirm.

Ask if they offer google analytics integration, and what type of reports they will send you

Ask for phone tracking. I believe this is the ultimate success measurement.

If they sell Search Engine Optimization (SEO), ask for a detailed list of items and tasks they will do every month. They should add content to your site regularly, optimize your meta tags for all pages, audit your local listings for any problems, add new local listings, find relevant quality directories for you to join. They should also help you gain reviews in a healthy ethical way

Ask if you have human customer support and monthly/weekly meetings with customer rep to go over deliverables.

They need to understand your business and goals

Never sign a long term contract; start with 3 or 6 months and see if things do improve.

If you don’t follow up with the advertising agency after you sign up, it is your fault. You need to track their progress and get reports explained to you

Buy a domain name that will have the main search term for your business (laundrmat, computer repair, jewelry, etc)

Buy “.com” domain. Don’t buy other extensions (unless you have extension specific business like colleges .EDU) . You don’t need it

Make it short and easy to remember

Avoid terms that are hard to spell

Test your domain name by telling your friends over the phone and see if they type it correctly

2. Get a web site

If you only have one location and you don’t plan on expanding, it is ok to get the location (city or county) in your domain name (example: nycplumber.com),

If your business serve the entire state or you have multiple branches, you can state in your domain name (example: NJPlumber.com)

Own your domain name: don’t let your designer, website developer buy the domain name for you. You must buy it and guard this login. Even if you have to share the domain name and hosting login with the company building your site, make sure to change the login once they are done. There are so many horror stories on design and development companies hijacking clients domains when they stop working or advertising with them.

Get cheap hosting from the domain provider, $5-$10 a month is more than enough for a starter site. Get Linux/MySQL/PHP hosting environment

Avoid building your site completely in FLASH or AJAX. Search Engines can’t read your site. If they can’t read the site, this means poor rankings and traffic.

Make sure your business Name, Address, and Phone number (NAP) are the same everywhere online including your site. This is the most important step of all.

Don’t use your one-word-domain-name (example: MyBusinessName.com) as your business name in some places then separate the words (My Business Name) in other places. It has to be the same name used everywhere.

NAP consistency is critical to your success online

always use your local phone number (don’t use 800 number or tracking numbers online)

If you have one location: Your business name, local phone number, address must be on all your pages in text format (not an image)

3. Site Content & Architecture

Pages you must have on your site

Location page(s) and service areas: include your contact info, business name, address, a map, direction tool, business hours and a list of all cities and counties you serve.

If you have multiple locations, create a page for each location. Add the different services each location provide in addition to the info mentioned above.

You may create a location page for each city you serve on your site. You need to add unique content that makes these pages distinct. You CAN’T just copy the same info and change the city name. Creating such pages will harm you. Each page must have sufficient unique content.

All Services Page: list all services with short description for each and link service name to service page.

Complains and feedback page: why would you let your customer complain about your service/products on other sites?? Create a page where users can submit complains and feedback directly to you on your site. They will come to you first before they go elsewhere.

Blogs: Write frequently on different topics that relate to your business

Industry news

Latest business updates

Discounts, coupons and offers >> very popular search

FAQ: see below

Guidelines, help articles and how to

Employee Profile Pages

Events & Calendars

Press Releases

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ): if users ask the same question twice, it should definitely go into you FAQ section on the site. FAQ content has a great traffic potential since most of the users will be searching for info on their problems/issues (example: black screen on my PC, what’s wrong) first before they contact a service provider (example: computer repair in city state). Each question should have its page.

Write a review page: A page that lists logos of all sites that have your business listing where users can leave you a review

I recommend the following site structure (folder architecture)

Homepage

Services

Service 1

Service 2

etc

Locations

Location 1

Location 2

etc

Testimonials

Contact us

FAQ

Blog

Guides

How to

Discounts

etc

Feedback & Complains

Blog or hire someone to blog for you. You need to post on regular basis and it has to be quality content

Make your site easy to use

Think like a customer not like a business owner.

Create easy navigation

Group (categorize) similar pages together (all services pages are grouped in one directory called services)

Make content easy to find; the user shouldn’t search your site to find contact us form or phone numbers.

Make call-to-actions (contact us link, submit email for newsletter, contact us forms, call us now, etc) visible and have unique look. You can even design all call-to-action buttons in one color that obvious to the user.

Each page on your site must have

Unique helpful content. You can’t copy content from somewhere else. Avoid using marketing fluff words but use actual terms that users will search for and that will help the user understand the page. There is no magic number for how many words to have on a page but let’s say 80-100 words minimum.

Unique SEO Meta (page title, meta description and meta keywords). Using WordPress CMS allows you modify and optimize these elements easily. It is extremely important that each page has a unique seo meta.

Page title should not exceed 60 characters. Put your brand name at the end of the page title not in the beginning

Meta Description: 160 characters include call to action (view, read, get, etc). Make it interesting for users to read.

Implement Google and Bing Webmaster tools. These tools provide you with a wealth of information including keywords and a lot of technical issues that your site may face. It will also you alert you if you site has been hacked and has malware or banned from search

4. Get Local Business Listings (Citations)

You must have a physical location to get a local business listing page at many of the places below.

Some sites allow you to hide your location which maybe a good option if you are working from home but it doesn’t help you much in rankings

You can’t use a P.O. Box or a virtual address service. You actually need a real address staffed location.

Get verified: most of the local directories will verify your ownership by sending you a postcard to your business or call you on the phone. This is very important step to gain strong visibility online and drive traffic and sales. Make sure you pay attention and not to lose the verification postcard or miss the phone call.

Before starting creating and/or claiming your local business listings have the information below ready. Make sure you record all submissions and claims in an excel sheet that you can revisit in the future.

Check if any local directories rank in google first page for your key terms and locations. Most of the time you can submit your business (or claim it if it is already there) for free. It is important to claim your business as your competitors may claim it and harm you by providing wrong business information

Find local directories that rank in Google for your main search terms+city/state:
com, AL.com, Cleveland.com, etc

Get Citations and Local Links are extremely important to your business. Citations are simply the mention of your business name along with phone number, and/or address. They might be a link also back to your site. Citations and links are important especially from local relevant organization as vote of trust to your business.

Local Chamber of commerce websites

Better Business Bureau

Local news websites: contributing articles or write how to guides

Local Sponsors: sponsor a school or a local charity. Usually you get a link from the site

Your Partners and vendors

Organizations & Societies that you deal with

Suppliers, manufacturers, attorneys, Accountants, other partners

Press Releases

Guest blogging on other reputable sites (local news sites are great place for that)

Charities (make donations) and sponsorships

Internet Yellow Pages

If you have time you can also list your business at

com

com

com

com

com

com

com

com

Make sure before you create a business listing to check if it already exists. If it does, you should claim it and NOT submit a new business

If someone claimed your business listing page, contact the site and get back the ownership of your listing. This might be used by a competitor to hurt your business

If you find multiple duplicate listings at the same directory/site, you must clean up your listings. It is a long tedious process but it has to be done

Ask every customer who contacts you via phone or email or site forms, or comes in person to your business, “how did you know about us”. Also ask every

Track leads: Record the finding in an excel sheet and find which channel (word of mouth, google search, google ads, facebook ads, newspaper ads, etc) drove more visits and phone calls. Calculate how much each lead cost you

Track clients: see how many of these leads convert to be paying clients and calculate how much it costs you per client

There are many channels for marketing some free and some paid

Google Ads: you pay per click. The price could vary from few cents to tens of dollars based on how competitive is your industry and how popular is you location. You can target audience by location, interests, geo/zip codes, etc

Facebook ads: you can target users more effectively. Cheaper than google and mainly depends on how attractive your ad image is. You can target users by a variety of factors that are not available in Google ads (status, birthday, interests, groups, etc)

6. Marketing

Word of mouth (referral program): offer your clients X% off if they refer a client. Also offer the prospective client similar incentive if referred by existing client.

Lead Generation: A lot of sites offer lead generations when you get a bunch of leads for a fixed price. You contact each lead and try to close the deal. Deals are generally sent to multiple businesses where customers are trying to get the best service and price.

7. Get Ratings & Reviews

User Reviews are extremely important to every local business. You must get a lot of good ones for your business to rank well and for users to contact you. The simplest way is to encourage your customers to leave you reviews:

Send them a thank you email/text message after their visit. Include a link to you all reviews page where they can leave you a review. The page should have the top 4-6 places where users can review you.

Don’t promise any incentives (like 10% on next visit); google may penalize you for that if they found out or if a competitor reported you. It is against their policies to pay customers for reviews. You can still tell your customers verbally on any review-incentive you may offer

Don’t be afraid to ask your customers who had a great experience with you if they’d be kind enough to give you a review. You will be surprised how many of them are willing to do so, but you have to ask

Always collect emails of your clients and email them back. You can filters their emails and send satisfied clients with Gmail accounts a link to your business listings page on Google, same thing for Yahoo email clients, send them a link to your Yahoo local business listing

Send satisfied Clients with Yahoo accounts a link to your place page on Yahoo Maps

Send a thank you postcard or Post a sign on your business door that you are on YELP, or any other site. Most of these sites send stickers

Don’t be afraid from negative feedback online. Negative feedback makes you legit. More users trust businesses that have few negative reviews more than those who have none.

Never insult your clients and describe them as stupid, cheap or ignorant

Try to remedy the situation offline (can we call you and help with this matter)

If the problem is solved ask customer to write a follow up, most customers will be happy to do so

Consider it as a chance to improve your business and service

Apologize if you have mistaken

Hey, some customers are hard to please and some are just terrible customers trying to blackmail business owners. If you did all what you can do within limits and you tried your best, don’t fall for their blackmail. Most of sites will allow you to reply on user comments; describe what happen without insulting the client, and explain that you tried your best to help but with no luck.

Social Media is important. The most popular one is Facebook but it may not be the best channel for you or the only the one you need.

8. Social Presence

Add social media sharing buttons to your pages. It is important to make it easy for your users to share your business and content. Don’t exceed 4-5 buttons. You can use one of the following services with your wordpress CMS

I am super excited to speak this year at conductor C3 conference 2013 along great presenters like Bill Hunt, Rand Fishkin, Wil Reynolds, Seth Besmertnik, John Loken and many other smart presenters.

The session is designed to meet the specific challenges of large-enterprise organizations. Topics for discussion will include SEO tactics specific to large site, the challenges of educating key stakeholders, including c-level executives; and implementation hurdles common to large organizations, such as CMS issues and IT team challenges. This session will also include proven tactics to optimize the product/project management process for more efficient in-house SEO.

Last week CanadaOne caught up with John Shehata, the executive director of search and social media for ABC News, ABC Family and ABC.com to gain insights into how businesses can effectively use Facebook to grow their companies.

In our second last edition of our ten-part interview series we spoke with John Shehata. John is an expert on the field of SEO for news websites and newspapers. In the course of his career he has worked for several pages of this type. At the moment he is the Executive Director of Search & Social Media for ABC News, ABC.com, ABC Family and the website of the Oscars. Next to these obligations, he holds presentations and has trained many writers, bloggers, journalists, and editors on SEO and how to write news while keeping SEO top of mind.

If you think Google+ is a social network that doesn’t matter to your small business, think again. In this exclusive CanadaOne interview John Shehata, executive director of search and social media for ABC News explains why Google Plus is the social platform your company can’t afford to ignore.

Looking for ways to optimize large sites? Million of pages, where to start. This presentation is designed to meet the specific challenges of large-enterprise organizations including SEO tactics specific to large sites (sites with thousands, if not millions, of pages); the challenges of educating key stakeholders, including budgeting issues; and implementation hurdles common to large organizations, such as CMS issues and IT team challenges.

I will cover the SEO Process optimizing enterprise clients or in-house sites. I will go over some of the main tools every SEO needs and the 17 skills and tactics needed to succeed at optimizing mega million page sites.